When Weina Dai Randel was in graduate school in the U.S., she felt frustrated after reading the opening chapter of Maxine Hong Kingston’s memoir “The Woman Warrior,” which describes the suicide of a Chinese woman who gave birth out of wedlock in the 1920s. “I told my classmates not all women in China are like this,” said Mrs. Randel, a Dallas-based author who grew up in China’s eastern coastal city of Wenzhou. “There are a lot of women in China who are very strong.”

Determined to write about such women, Mrs. Randel turned to Wu Zetian, China’s first and only female ruler, who reigned from 690 to 705 AD. “Most people learn China through Amy Tan and Lisa See,” Mrs. Randel said, referring to the two well-known American authors who write novels about Chinese culture. “They didn’t grow up in China, and I did, so I think I have different perspective.”

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The result is a fictional, historical duology of life before the throne for Empress Wu, who many historians have portrayed as a vengeful and lustful woman who allegedly murdered many family members. The first book, “The Moon in the Palace,” debuted earlier this month and chronicles the young life of Empress Wu -- who Mrs. Randel has renamed Wu Mei in her fictional retelling -- when she first comes to the palace as a concubine of Emperor Taizong. The second book, “The Empress of Bright Moon,” looks at Wu Mei's journey to becoming the empress. The book debuts on April 5.

China Real Time spoke with Mrs. Randel about her duology, which took her nearly a decade to complete. Below are edited excerpts.

Not much is known about Empress Wu, and what is known isn’t the greatest. She’s portrayed as quite the villain. Yet in your books, she looks like a heroine. Why take this approach?

I wanted to change people’s perception of her and of Chinese women in general. Empress Wu was not as vile as many Confucian scholars have portrayed her. When she came to the palace at the age of 13, she must have gone through a lot of trials. But then she succeeded, and she rose above many people. There have to be admirable qualities about her for her to get there.

You also have to remember that Confucian scholars wrote much of history, and the Confucian belief is women should not rule above men. But she rose above men, and she governed men, and she proposed many policies to change society’s structure in the Tang Dynasty. A lot of men didn’t accept that.

Your books are works of fiction but are steeped in history. What was your research process?

I started with “Tang Huiyao” (The Institutional History of Tang) by Wang Pu, and then the “Old Book of Tang” and the “New Book of Tang.” Those are the earliest sources about Empress Wu, but they didn’t describe her in detail. Most of them just mentioned she came to the palace at this age, and then she went to a Buddhist monastery after the emperor died, and then she came back to the palace. It was not a lot. But it was necessary to know the basic life that she had.

I also did a lot of research about polo [which plays prominently in the books]. Polo was originally a Persian sport but was introduced through people in Tibet. In the beginning of the Tang dynasty people had a lot of horses so polo was very popular. A lot of women were very good polo players, too. Before Empress Wu, they weren’t encouraged to play the sport inside the palace. During her reign, she liked the idea of women playing sports, so she encouraged it.

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What surprised you in your research of the Tang dynasty and Empress Wu?

I was shocked that some men described her so meanly. A British scholar, Jonathan Clements, wrote a book called “Wu: The Chinese Empress Who Schemed, Seduced and Murdered Her Way to Become a Living God.” The title itself was so provocative. Lin Yutang, a famous Chinese and Confucian scholar, wrote the book “Lady Wu” from the perspective of Empress Wu’s grandson. The first line of the book is, “How can one write about one’s grandmother especially if she was a whore?” I was so frustrated. I really believed that a woman should write about the empress.

Why did you decide to make the story a duology instead of one or three books, with the third being about her time on the throne?

My initial idea was to write three books. The first book would be her life when she was young, so you can see her relative innocence and resourcefulness. The second book would be how she goes through all the trials to become the empress. And the third one would start when she was ruling alone and had to fight against the concept that she was a woman and that she shouldn’t rule above men. My publisher didn’t want to have the third book, though.

Why did you decide to write the books in English, your second language, instead of Chinese?

I wanted to introduce Empress Wu to Western readers. Chinese readers are very familiar with her and have inherited many colorful views of her. If I wrote something in Chinese, it’s not something fresh and it’s not going to change anyone’s mind. But in America, most readers still don’t know about her.

What was the most challenging part of writing the duology?

The emotion. When I was writing the part when Empress Wu loses her daughter, it was very hard. She did lose her daughter; it’s mentioned in the earliest source [of historical record], but not how or who killed her, so some people think she killed her own daughter. Obviously, in my book it wasn’t like that.

Are there plans to publish the books in Chinese, and if so, do you worry about censorship?

I don’t want to translate the book myself, but I’ll be happy if somebody else does! Maybe people in China would be proud that Empress Wu was introduced to the U.S., and maybe they’ll read the book with an open eye. But I think a lot of stuff in the book would be chopped, like the sex education scenes. I guess I have no control over that.